Top French hope?

James Boyd speaks to Roland Jourdain, third in the last Vendee, and looks at his prospects this time round

Later this week, in the build-up to Sunday's start of the Vendee Globe, we will be publishing our odds for the competitors in this the fifth singlehanded non-stop around the world race, but one man we expect to see on the podium if not arriving home first sometime come the finish in early February is Roland Jourdain (aka 'Bilou').

Of all the competitors taking part this time round the 40-year-old father of two from Quimper placed most highly in the 2000-1 Vendee Globe finishing third behind winner Michel Desjoyeaux and second placed Ellen MacArthur after his yacht (now Alex Thomson's Hugo Boss) suffered mast track problems.

Aside from this Jourdain has rich credentials to win this Vendee Globe in terms of his background in both singlehanding and round the world racing. He, like Jean le Cam and Michel Desjoyeaux, was nurtured in his early 20s by Eric Tabarly and raced around the world with the legendary French offshore sailor - in Jourdain's case aboard Cote d'Or in the 1985/6 Whitbread. Then, again like le Cam and Desjoyeaux, his sailing career became a fantastic mish-mash of the French classes, including skippering a Formula 40 trimaran, crewing on 60ft trimarans (winning the Round Europe Race in 1993 on Fujicolor and the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre with the late Paul Vatine in 1995) and of course the Figaro. Perhaps a sore point in Jourdain's career is that he has never dominated the singlehanded Figaro class in the same absolute way as his peers Desjoyeaux and le Cam even though he posted respectible sixth places in the 1996 and 1997 Solitaire du Figaros and won the two handed Transat AG2R with le Cam in 1994.

Where Jourdain has proved himself is in the Open 60 class, finishing second in the 2000 Europe 1 New Man STAR (now The Transat) and third in the Vendee later that year. In the Open 60 seasons after the last Vendee Sill began to clean up dominating the EDS Atlantic Challenge in 2001 until she dismasted, and subsequently won the Transat Jacques Vabre and in 2002 the Open 60 Grand Prix in Quiberon and Marseilles and the long offshore, the Regate du Rubicon. But once again in the storm-ravaged 2002 Route du Rhum Jourdain failed to cut the mustard when the racing turned singlehanded, finishing third having suffered sail damage, to Ellen MacArthur (once again) and Mike Golding. While clearly Jourdain is lacking nothing when it comes to experience, if he has any tiny chink in his armour when it comes to form in this Vendee Globe it is his lack of any significant race wins when alone on board.



This time Bilou is back with a new blood red boat, recently renamed Sill Véolia, another Marc Lombard design and the newest boat in the Vendee fleet. Sill Véolia is sistership to Bonduelle of his old sailing partner Jean le Cam, which we featured during the summer in these pages (click here to read about the technical nuts and bolts of Bonduelle ).

Soon after her launch Bonduelle managed to clean up in the 1000 Milles de Calais race ahead of Mike Golding's new Ecover, but during her early sea trials the new Sill began to suffer from severe keel cavitation - a phenomenon known in avionics as 'flutter' where a harmonic resonance builds up in a foil with potentially catastrophic consequences. Both Open 60s returned to Brittany to regroup.

"The most difficult thing was to know why it was moving because the engineers said it was good but we saw it was moving," recounts Jourdain of how they solved the problem. "When we found out what the problem was and how it could be solved - it was easy." Both Bonduelle and Sill have carbon fibre foils and France's top marine engineers Herve Devaux and Eric Levet set about coming up with a fix that involved laminating more unidirectional carbon fibre on the foils at 45 degrees.

To qualify for the Vendee Globe Jourdain had to carry out a 2,500 mile passage which he completed at the same time as le Cam in mid-July, this time thankfully with a flutter-free foil. "Now it is more solid than steel in fact, but it is a little bigger and less thin," Jourdain confirms of his newly reinforced appendage. "In fact it moves less than any steel keel we've tried. It is really stiff now and good for the race."

Between Sill Véolia and Bonduelle Jourdain says that there is as about as much difference performance-wise as there is between two one design Figaros. "My boat is faster because it is red," he jokes. However he uses sails by Incidences while Bonduelle's are made by North France. During their trials in the summer Sill Véolia showed a marginal edge upwind and Bonduelle downwind. Both boats have new sails for the Vendee Globe and haven't lined up with their new wardrobes.

Compared to his old Sill Jourdain says there are significant improvements over the old boat. The boat is lighter - numbers haven't been disclosed but she is likely to be around the 8.5 tonne mark - and her hull shape is supposed to be more slippery downwind. Significantly she is lot more comfortable thanks to having around 30cm more freeboard at her bow.

"The big progress has been with the comfort and security in the cockpit," confirms Jourdain. "There is no wind and water. Until 30 knots you are completely dry. So happiness for me! In the old boat a lot of water came into the cockpit and I was fed up with that."

Performance-wise Jourdain says the new boat is at least as fast as his old boat in all conditions but should be faster reaching. "I will give you the answer in February. I am superstitious," he says.